"She's weakened, eh? Guess I couldn't have picked a better time to come back, then." Ambitious, was he? That was a problem. The ambitious underlings often ended up causing the most trouble. The less-than-entirely-intelligent ones even more so.

"That's often my first impression on people, yes." Oh, and he was funny. Cute. Ambrose was no longer amused by him, because he was inching into the range of annoying.

[i["Ragnarok? In Norse Mythology, Ragnarok is the end of the world. An end in which even the deities and powers that be themselves meet their end. I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you're up to something very similar to or symbolic of this, or you'd like to spend the rest of the evening discussing mythology. As much as the latter would intrigue me, I'm thinking closer to the former, yes?"[/i]

"Wonderful," Ambrose said, dryly. "You have a rudimentary knowledge of Norse mythology." He was really regretting listening to Panu now, because he had no doubt that this "hobo," as Panu aptly seemed to consider him, would be fully incapable of being a fully functioning member of Ragnarok. "Of course I'm not spontaneously referencing mythology because it's fun; any eight year old could have inferred I was speaking about something else." He glanced down at Panu. "Sorry," he said, almost apologetically. He turned his attention back to the other man, now more than slightly annoyed by his flops between angsty and trying-to-be-smart. The man was exactly, if not more so, stupid than he first appeared. "No, I am speaking of us. Ragnarok. I am Jörmungandr, and this is Muninn. If you have not heard of us, or aren't intelligent enough to make the connections, then you should leave. Muninn is the only one protecting you from being in pieces across this park right now, and you are very rapidly nearing a point where you would be more useful to us in pieces around this park than alive and talking."

Perfect...Then again, what did Ty expect from a dragon? No less than being a condescending asshole, he assumed. But then again, what was expected of him? He was weak, useless. Every time the opportunity came for him to do something great and badass, he turned tail and ran.

"I've made the connections, and I understand perfectly," he replied calmly, his demeanor changing to one of complete and total seriousness.

Maybe it was better this way. They'd see him as stupid and worthless now, but that gave him nowhere to go but up. After all, did he expect working from the bottom to be easy? No. He'd start as just a mere nobody. But once he got back on his feet, he was going to do something. Ty Fisher would be somebody...

He juuust had to finish this meeting alive.

Sometimes the wind blows very very hard, like it is trying to break the world. Trees get stiff and brittle and stand like they are just trying to stay standing. Then the wind stops, and they relax, and it is like everything settles into place again.

When the hobo finally spoke in a serious voice, this is what Panu was like. He did not realize how tight his shoulders were until they relaxed. He rubbed at one of them. They sort of ached, now.

Probably Ty Fisher would give him an ulcer, if he kept baiting dragons like he had been.

(Probably Jaager would kill the ginger long before then.)

"Maybe we go home now, discuss details?" The blonde boy quietly put in. "You are a big dragon in a small park, dripping more blood than a lake."

Jaager liked to stand out, but usually not like this. This was too mundane of a situation for him to be found in. Ragnarok was better than hobos and parks.

"I've made the connections, and I understand perfectly." Good. Finally. That'd taken so long.

Ambrose unconsciously scratched at his flank with his back leg. Dried blood was getting caught between the scales, and it was kind of starting to itch.

"Maybe we go home now, discuss details?" Panu said softly. "You are a big dragon in a small park, dripping more blood than a lake." Great timing on that, actually. The blood was starting to become uncomfortably sticky and was clogging where it shouldn't, much to his irritation. But he needed it. Statements were always made more clear when in the presence of gallons of blood. He was sure Panu would be fine now, since people tended to do what they were told when threatened.

"You can cover the details," Ambrose said. "I do not want this blood to go to waste, so I will be leaving. But he does not get to see our home. Find somewhere else." He swung his head over to peer at the man again. "Why don't we call him Sleipnir," he said, almost pensively, and he was sure Panu would get the joke, even if the man himself didn't.

And with that, Ambrose leapt off into the sky, swooping out of sight.

He wasn't leaving, of course. He was circling just above the cloud level, so he couldn't be seen, but he could see the two figures below thanks to his heat-sensitive vision. It would be rather telling to see what they did next.

Sleipnir....great. Ty's look of disdain showed that he knew full well what it meant, but at the same time, he nodded in acceptance. They had low expectations of him, that was sure, but that would make it all the more worthwhile once he rose to the top and proved his true worth. After all, first impressions were really nothing, when one thought hard about it; there were land mines designed to look like rocks. First impression: harmless. Then...BOOM! So, Ty was going to be one of these land mines.

And the condescending asshole dragon flew away, leaving the boy and his hobo. Of course Ty had no idea the dragon was still watching, but it wasn't like they were going to do anything wrong....maybe.

"So, we talk. You up for ice cream? I'm wanting ice cream..." With that, Ty motioned for the lad to follow; though it wasn't long before parked on the side of the road, they found their bounty. She wasn't new, but she was there; an ice cream truck, colored in snow white and an icy blue; decorated with snowflakes and snowmen and other happy little winter wonder-things. And...there was it's owner. A short, stocky, gentleman who....well wasn't very threatening, or ice-cream man esque...Oh well.

"Good evening, sir," Ty started, lightly brushing his palm nonchalantly against the man's sleeve, so subtly no one would really notice, but the ginger was gathering information. "Spare some ice cream this late for my brother and I?"

"**** off," the man replied, "Can't yas see I'm closed?"

"Oh, I see much more than that..." Ty replied, placing a hand in his pocket and writing a memory at random onto a quarter, making his eyes glow red, illuminating the night.

"****! ****ing muties..."

"Not just any muties...You just pissed off the guy who can see your every secret. My my...we've got some dark ones, haven't we? Abusive...controlling...living with...your mother? And here I was just wanting to buy some ice cream..."

The man grew silent, face paling, and then...he dropped. Cold. Ty cursed inwardly, but grabbed the man's keys, leading Panu to the now empty truck and climbing in.

"So...ice cream. Didn't think I'd pull through with the promise so soon...but here she is. I'm gonna take it by a friend's later to get her all fixed up to better accommodate us," he replied, trying to ignore the fact that he just randomly probably killed someone as he started the truck and moved it back towards the park, away from the crime scene.

"Now...we can talk."

Panu got into the van with a hobo who had probably just killed a man. He did so without saying anything. He was very good at recognizing when saying things would not help.

The man made sort of a gurgling noise, and one of his hands gripped at his chest. The little boy stepped over him without looking down. When he slipped into the passenger side, he lifted his phone off from around his neck, and slipped it into his back jeans pocket.

Now he could not see.

Now the hobo could not see his phone dialing 911.

"It is good to know you can be serious," the eight year old quietly said, in his melodic accent. "Murders you show me are for reasons. Probably this is murder Jörmungandr likes better."

Panu didn't say whether he liked it better. He hadn't joined Ragnarok to have an opinion.

"Ragnarok is chaos group." The boy said. "Jörmungandr says we will build a better world after, but our job now is to destroy. Anything is okay. Just destroy, and make it known that you are Ragnarok. Our boss-boss is Loki. Probably you will not meet him. Police will never catch him, either. He passes orders down. Jörmungandr and Nidhoggr and sometimes others pass orders. But anything is okay, with or without orders. Ragnarok is breaking of all things."

On the other end, 911 finally picked up. It felt like forever, even though it was less than a minute. He muted it, ringing and voice and all sounds, before it ever made a noise. A synthesized voice spoke through the phone to the operators end. A man was having a heart attack, it said. The location was given as GPS coordinates, rather than a street address. Then the call was hung up.

Probably he needed a new phone, now, in case someone cared enough to trace the call. It did not really matter. Phones were only phones. Anything important, he saved in his own mind.

"You have questions?" The boy asked, staring blindly out the windshield.

Panu had questions. Like what Faust had done to him, and where they were going, and whether the man had really joined or if he had just waited for the dragon to leave and now he was going to do whatever murder hobos did when they had an eight year old in an ice cream van.

Sleipnir was a very harmless name. Probably not the best name for Ty Fisher.

Ty silently gave a nod, followed by a "Yeah." However, technically, this murder, manslaughter, or whatever the hell it was, had also been for a reason. After all, Ty had promised the boy an ice cream truck.

Questions. "So, to clarify, we act out what Norse mythology describes as Ragnarok. We tear down the current structure of this world, kill the reigning 'gods' or powers that be, then rebuild. In our own image." He chewed on this for a moment. Getting in with a powerful group was easier than he'd expected. Almost...too....easy. Working his way up would be the hard part, but...maybe the boy could be of use to this purpose as well. Maybe a rise to power wouldn't be as hard as he thought, given his assets.

"I do have a few questions though. More personal. Is...Jörmungandr...always like that? And...my real curiosity. Would you be willing to help me in a...project?" He paused for a moment, his mind already turning with ideas.

"I gather your powers deal in technology. If I showed you something using my power, could you maybe use yours to broadcast what I'd shown you?" He waited for an answer, parking the ice cream truck and climbing in the back, helping himself to a mint-chocolate chip cone.

Panu nodded at Sleipnir's recap. He was nervous, and visibly so--without his hoodie to hide inside of, it was obvious that his thin shoulders were tense, and his back overly straight. He had been looking straight out the windshield since he had gotten in the van, because looking around was a useless thing to him. The only eye he had was still in his pocket. He did not want to take it out yet, because he did not want to draw Ty's attention to it. Did not want the murder hobo to question why he had put it away in the first place.

His hoodie and all his spare eyes and also his spare batteries were all back in Jaager's house, where he had been ordered not to bring the hobo. Probably it was a good thing he was keeping his phone in his pocket. It was harder for Ty to steal there, and also it reminded him to keep the camera turned off until he really really needed it. Cameras ate a lot of battery power, and he did not know how long they would be out. His was only half-charged to begin with.

So he tucked his hands in his lap, and tried to just listen. With his organic ears. After a moment, he slide his headphones down to hang around his neck. Now the world was significantly louder, filled with creaks of aging suspension and potholes being run over.

He wished the dragon had stayed around. Sleipnir was talking like he really had joined Ragnarok, which made him family now, but Panu knew that not everyone in his family would be someone safe for a child to be alone with.

"Jörmungandr is always like that if he thinks you are being stupid," the boy said softly. "Do not be stupid, and he does not hurt his own."

That was the kind of family member Panu liked. Sometimes Panu was stupid, but mostly he was smart, and he was also good at being quiet, which was almost as good. He did not know what kind of person Ty was, yet, except that he was okay stealing from blind children and also with killing men to get their ice cream trucks.

Also that he had a project. A project meant he had a use for Panu, that he wanted him for something. The blonde boy visibly perked up, his back straightening.

He knew he needed to conserve battery power, and also that it was a bad idea to put his phone in reach of Ty again, but sometimes he had to take risks so that his family would like him more. He slid his phone out of his pocket, and showed the screen to his new brother.

On it was a perfect video of the memories he'd been shown earlier, playing as a simple media file. This was something even Jaager did not know he could do. Jaager had never asked.

"Tell me what to broadcast and where. Maybe I need equipment if it is somewhere special, but if I have equipment, answer is always yes."

"My name is Panu," he added, because family should know each other's real names. He squirmed around on the seat until he was leaning through the window into the back. He had put his phone back in his pocket, after a quick glance at what Ty was doing. "...May I have strawberry?"

Ty smiled; this kid was...interesting. He was so smart for his age, and yet he was acting so...peculiar. Then again...wasn't that what 8 year-old boys do? Act peculiar. He leaned back against the wall of the ice cream truck, smirking as the boy showed him the video. It was...odd. Ty was unable to see what he'd written, and there were a lot of...unintended...images there.

"Interesting...I should learn to keep my focus when using my power...There's an image or two there I didn't intend to be there..." he muttered to himself, but maybe audibly enough for the boy to hear, who knew?

"I have nothing yet, but you and I can cause many a government scandal. I use my ability to find government secrets, you publish them, and the government will practically bring itself to its knees. As far as equipment goes...I know a guy who owes me a favor. Once we're done here, I can drop this baby off, and have it overhauled into sort of a base for us. A Batcave if you will. Jotunheimr..."

With that, he reached into the cooler and grabbed a strawberry cone for his new little brother, opening it before placing the cone in his hand. "My name is Ty. So, do you have any questions about me? Fair is fair."

Ty was not acting very scary. He was acting very... normal? Maybe? It was the wrong word for a person who was handing out ice cream from the back of a stolen truck, but it was the right word for a person who helped a blind boy find the cone by setting it directly in his hand. It was a waffle cone, which was the best kind.

Maybe this is who Ty really was. Or maybe the other face, the one that gave old men heart attacks, was the true one. Maybe the ginger was good at hiding whichever his true face was.

As long as he was nice to Panu, the blonde boy did not care which was the truth. Truth was stupid, anyway.

He heard the little cloth-on-metal whump, felt the van's weight shift a little. Ty was leaning against the side of the van. Panu stayed sitting inside, but turned so his legs were dangling out. He held the cone in both hands, and studiously set to work politely demolishing it. The night air was still very warm on his face, but ice cream quickly made him cold from the inside, so he could feel goose-flesh breaking out on his arms even though he was not really cold.

"I like your plan. It is good and also easy, with our powers. Also we can do it many many times, and as long as we are careful they can never catch us. Probably they are suspicious of hidden cameras long before they are suspicious of us." It was a very good idea. Jaager would realize that, and probably then Sleipnir would be safe. He seemed like he would be a good brother; he even knew enough about Norse mythology to make an ice cream truck joke. The Fin grinned a little. He tried to hide it behind the strawberry cone, but probably Ty caught it.

The smile froze as he remembered something. The broken arm that Jaager has promised, in a language the hobo did not understand.

"Maybe we should do first broadcast soon," he said. Maybe then Ty would not wear a sling for a month, or be scared away from Ragnarok. If he left, probably Jaager would have to kill him. Ragnarok did not seem like the kind of family people could leave.

Ty offered him questions. It was a very generous offer, and the Fin thought a long time before he asked his first one, so that he would not abuse the hobo's openness.

"Do you want Lori dead or just broken?" This was a better question than what did she do to you. That was the question he really really wanted to ask, the one that was sparking in the air between them, but that would be too prying.

Ty was a complicated individual as far as people went; and Panu would see that soon enough. Yes, Ty was sweet, gentle, and caring. But resting just beneath the surface was a dark, ruthless, manipulative side that threatened to come out. And sometimes, it did.

Ty smirked; Panu seemed so much more like a normal eight year old boy when the dragon wasn't around. Then again...all things considered, Ty decided to take notes there. Any weakness, any stupidity, needs to be pushed away when he was around. Ty nodded.

"They'd never know it was something like a hat, a jacket, or even a coat rack that was seeing them when they thought no one was looking. And...I can view a twenty year old secret as if it had happened yesterday."

He bit his lip, thinking on this. "Soon...Let's see...we need a target. Someone with influence, but still somewhat of a small fry. Start at the bottom of the totem pole, then work our way up. Maybe some influential CEO, so that when we crumble his company, we can then swoop in and take it as our own, adding to our own power in the process."

And then...came the question. His smile faded into a bitter look of disgust. "I would say death, but death is merciful. I guess you could say my answer is both. I want to break her, slowly yet completely. And then, just as slowly and painfully...I want her to die. The things I've seen happen by her hand, that keep me awake at night, I'll take to my grave. But first...I want her to take them to hers."

Ty left his answer at that, somehow forgetting this kid was only eight. Oh well. The boy was complicated that way. The thief finished his ice cream, and sat on the floor of the truck, thinking.

He swung his legs as he ate, because it was fun too, and Ty did not seem to mind that he was eight. Sometimes it seemed like Jaager did not even understand the concept of eight, he just thought Panu was a short adult. He did not think the dragon liked to see any signs that eight meant child.

"So your power is work on any object? Can you read directly from people too, or only things?" These were good details to know, if they were to work together. Panu's end of things would be simple: take the memory that Ty had found, and save it. It was what he did with all his memories, any way. Default system behavior. Ty's was the hard part--finding the memories. "Are some objects more likely to pick up bad things? How do you know where to look?"

He had heard of powers like Ty's before, but never worked with someone who had it. Hopefully his questions were not annoying. If Ty seemed hesitant to answer, then he would stop asking. But he was very very curious until then.

It sounded very much, with every word out of the ginger's mouth, that he was describing Lori Faust. He never named her, but all the things he said were her. Did he even know he was doing it? Panu licked his cone, making sure to spin it diligently after each lick so that it would not drip. He could not see it if it did, so he must be careful to take preventative measures. He ate fastidiously, and did not comment that maybe Ty was reliving his trauma into the night air.

"Do you have name in mind?" He asked instead. "If not, I can make list. Is easy search. I can send to your phone." The man was standing next to him, and had a phone. Ergo, Panu had no need to ask his phone number.

The Fin could hear the disgust in the hobo's voice. The answer was very much what he expected. It was a very normal answer, in his experience. He did not look alarmed by it, he only nodded companionably, and did not ask any follow up questions. There were many things he wanted to know, but that tone of voice was a warning to more than just Faust. Eight year olds should not pry. If the person they were talking to was already upset, then they could not ask what did she do, or are you really a hobo.

"You can ask me questions, too, if you have any." The boy offered instead. Hopefully this would help the man calm down. Panu's legs had stopped swinging, the moment the man's composure had cracked.

"I can only read objects, not people directly. And my powers work on just about any object, yeah. As far as objects being worse than others...it's all about what the object itself has been through. If I were to touch a wallet, all I'd really get is the inside of someone's back pocket. But something like a shirt or a hat would be a gold mine of memories." He paused, giving the boy time to soak in the information.

"Knowing where to look isn't easy. It's about like stealing from them though; you have to find your mark, scout 'em out and make sure they're worth getting info from. But you never really know until you do it. But the thing about what we're doing is...politicians and CEO's are as dirty as a gym bag."

"I don't know of a name right now, no. So that would be great. You make me a hit-list, I get what you need, you publish it, and we're both making headway." Ty was well relaxed by this point; so much more so than when they'd first met. This...this was as close to Ty in his default demeanor as he could be. Now that the conversation had diverted from...her...

"Questions...Actually I think I'm good. I got a good many answers from your phone when I took it. I'm sorry about that by the way; I still would have given it back, but...if I'd known it was your eyesight...I'd have found another way.[/color"

People overestimated the complexity of searches. Of list-making. Probably because for most people, there was much typing by hand, and clicking buttons, and waiting and refining and typing and copying to a spreadsheet and typing.

Panu had to do these things to, but he did not have the handicap of a keyboard. Or of needing to flip between applications. Or of getting bored by repetitions, like going through the NYS' Corporation and Business Entity Database, starting with the "A" as his search (20 pages of results) and moving on to "B", "C", "D". All results were copied: business names, owners, addresses. He would refine them later, by searching elsewhere. There was no need to think about that now. Maybe that is where normal humans made things harder than they needed to be--it was an easy, easy thing to gather thousands of results and then refine. If you stopped at each little one to nitpick its status, then probably it would take forever.

In the back of Panu's mind the search continued to run, taking up as much of his concentration as any background process on a good computer. Paying it more attention would not make it faster. It was stupid easy work, and he could talk while he did it, and eat ice cream.

"I like your power," he said. "It is like mine, maybe. People think it is not strong, but actually it is very useful. How fast is memory-viewing? Can we pretend we are nonprofit collecting winter clothes and get many many clothes, and you look through all of them? Or is it take too much time?"

A-Z was complete. He had forgotten to check for names starting with not-real-letters, like 0-9 and @#$, so he went back for those.

Done.

Now he would refine. He did not know the words he wanted, but the internet did. This part was the hard part: he frowned a little over his cone as he searched-refined-searched-refined-searched-refined until he knew where to look for real, and what he was looking for. Ty had paused in his speech, so this was okay. (His audio was on auto-record, so he could always catch up later. But it was best to respond quickly when people talked or they started to wonder what it was he was really doing when he was quiet.)

"How much money they make" brought up pages with terms like profits and net earnings. So he searched for those. Profits and net earnings brought him to pages with financial statements, SEC filings, earnings estimates, stat your free trial or buy the full company report, only $29.99! These were better words. SEC filings, especially, sounded like a government thing. Government things were usually mandatory. Wikipedia was his best friend and teacher, and it told him SEC filings were exactly what he was looking for.

Soon he was on EDGAR, who was his new best friend. Now he had all the information he wanted for A M PLUMBING AND HEATING LLC, who was the very first result in his list. Now he knew what to do. Now he could automate.

This would take longer, but now it was easy again. He scanned the audio files he had missed, and refocused his attention on the conversation.

"Everyone is dirty as gym bag," the boy nodded sagely. His cone had started to drip, he could feel it on his hand, so he redoubled his licking efforts. "People who are not are just hiding better. They are scary ones."

He liked ones like Jaager better. It was very very easy to see how dirty the gym bag was, when there were pieces of arms and legs sticking out the top, and also a red puddle growing under it. Jaager's gym bag was a very honest gym bag, once you knew he was Jörmungandr.

>> "I don't know of a name right now, no. So that would be great. You make me a hit-list, I get what you need, you publish it, and we're both making headway."

Panu nodded, and kept running his search. He had not waited for confirmation because sometimes adults wanted things done five minutes ago. It was easier to delete unwanted results than it was to time travel, so when he offered something, usually he started doing it.

The hobo's voice was not angry anymore as he kept talking. Panu returned to swinging his legs. Also he started searching for a way to bulk-enter search terms into EDGAR, or maybe just download all their information so he could just filter by "New York." One-by-one look up was going to take forever. But their site was stupid and no he did not want to read their tutorial it was in the Worst English Ever, why was this so difficult, they had all the data but it was like they had taken a carton of eggs and instead of going 'here are some eggs, let's put them together into one delicious omelet' they had said 'here are some eggs, let's individually wrap them in plastic and then duct tape and then cement hahaha let's see people make an omelet now' he hated databases like this--

Oh.

Or he could just open more browser tabs, and run simultaneous searches.

...Panu did that.

Ty did not have any questions for him, which was good because then it looked like Panu had just been enjoying his cone (and maybe thinking over the man's apology), instead of completely ignoring his audio intake while he raged at the SEC.

"I accept apology," he said. "Theft is complement, maybe? It is good you could not tell I was blind. It is bad when people can."

This was going much much much more fast--

Until the SEC site crashed.

"<Oh come on,>" the boy shouted, "<if I wanted to DoS you, you would know.>"

If Ty knew what a DoS was, he may have caught that word. The rest was very much in Finnish. Belatedly, he clapped hand over his mouth, and sat very still. It was bad to raise your voice around adults.

"Viewing for me is a lot faster than it is for someone to view what I impart onto something. For me to read, it takes at the most one minute. So it's like all the memories are being crammed into my head. However, this makes my head hurt, so I have to do it in moderation, or I might pass out. Or worse..." he let his voice trail off. "I don't think it could kill me, but I did spend some time in a coma for reading a thousand year old artifact."

He agreed with Panu's correction of his statement, and everything then went quiet. Ty assumed it was because the boy was either focused on the ice cream cone, or he was doing something...techy...or both.

His suspicions were confirmed when the lad started yelling in Finnish; though he did make out the DoS. Apparently the boy's power wasn't immune to technical difficulties.

He shrugged. "Hey, if there's an issue, you can let it out around me. I won't tell anyone. In fact I've probably said worse, so no worries."

Yep, perfect advice for an 8-year-old...